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‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

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Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#131

Post by close04 »

presumably wrote: post #94
bathtub365 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re saying an entire system was added to integrate with user email accounts, download all their contacts, and upload them to a database at Facebook, accidentally?

Please respond to the actual contents of my post, and not a strawman version of it. I’m saying what I said, nothing more. > Software absolutely can and does lead to unintended outcomes, else there would be no bugs. Edit: also see this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22429620 TFA explains how the system was added, it’s absurd and intellectually dishonest to interpret my post as saying what you wrote.

Have you noticed how no feature that brings monetary value to the users is ever accidentally added? I never accidentally received money from these companies, extra storage quota, personalized email address, premium account, etc. And certainly never something that you get to keep once they realize the mistake. The fact that they have such weak controls when it comes to protecting you but such strong controls when it comes to protecting themselves can only be a calculated decision. And the number of precedents of such "mistakes" that are always to their advantage is the proof.

It's a mistake only the first time. Knowing they get away with it every time and reap the reward is just an incentive to do it again and again. And people finding excuses and justifying this as being acceptable is one reason they get away with it. They rely on advocates for ignorance and defeatism to make such incidents feel like a banality, "oh well, what can you do", "it could happen to anyone", etc.

How many situations would you consider excusable where bad things happen to you because someone "accidentally" removed the step where you were informed what's happening and could say no?

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#132

Post by CannisterFlux »

interlocutor wrote: post #60

In the early days, Facebook logged into user's email accounts and stole contact information without users' knowledge or authorization. This was possible because people used the same password for their email and Facebook, a practice common especially back in those days. This is one of their sources for PYMK. In fact Facebook has used this technique very recently too: A security researcher noticed the tech giant was pr…

Wasn't it was worse than that? I think they used to ask for your email and password explicitly for the contacts. Twitter used to do the same as well as some others. Here is a blog post from 2008 about Yelp doing it, but I can't find anything for Twitter (though I definitely remember it being the case back in the day, a comment on this blog post also mentions it) https://blog.codinghorror.com/please-give-us-your-email-pass...

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#134

Post by dspillett »

close04 wrote: post #131
presumably wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please respond to the actual contents of my post, and not a strawman version of it. I’m saying what I said, nothing more. > Software absolutely can and does lead to unintended outcomes, else there would be no bugs. Edit: also see this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22429620 TFA explains how the system was added, it’s absurd and intellectually dishonest to interpret my post as saying what you wrote.

Have you noticed how no feature that brings monetary value to the users is ever accidentally added? I never accidentally received money from these companies, extra storage quota, personalized email address, premium account, etc. And certainly never something that you get to keep once they realize the mistake. The fact that they have such weak controls when it comes to protecting you but such strong controls when it c…

> I never accidentally ... extra storage quota

Raises hand as an example of someone who essentially got a free server upgrade from 500G to 2T storage recently, due to people following a fixed procedure in a slightly unusual circumstance without thinking.

"Positive" accidents do happen. People just don't tend to shout about them publicly as much as they do about those with negative consequences or that affect many at the same time.

> someone "accidentally" removed the step where you were informed what's happening and could say no

In this case I can easily see this accident happen. A junior was told to remove those parts of the UI. That person has little of no knowledge of the back-end and does not have time to dig or think further because they have other work tickets assigned to them to get on with, just did the job and moved on.

Facebook may be deliberately shitty a lot of the time, that doesn't mean they aren't sometimes accidentally stupidly shitty too.

> would you consider excusable where bad things happen to you because someone "accidentally"

Of course this doesn't excuse it, just explains it. There was a fault in the management and/or work review processes. Someone should have had the opportunity to put two and two together and failed to do so. And there should be some fallout. To use a rather extreme analogy: accidentally killing someone through gross ineptitude is still a punishable crime (manslaughter), I would agree that accidentally breaching data collection rules through gross ineptitude should be too (though I doubt the coders/testers dealing with the "UI cleanup" ticket could be said to be responsible).

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#135

Post by jiofih »

joegahona wrote: post #117
the_watcher wrote: post #71

> But monthly was a better indicator, because someone consistently on the service for a full month was likely there to stay. That is not what a monthly active user is, even at Facebook. A MAU logs in once per month, a DAU logs in once per day.

Yeah exactly, and I think it was DAU/MAU that Facebook started obsessing over, not just MAU. Is there a difference between an "active user" and just a "user"?

A “user” is an account. Active means logged in at least once in X periods.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#136

Post by Funes- »

Yes, Facebook got into our e-mail accounts. Yes, Twitter did too. They--plus Instagram and WhatsApp (all part of FB)--sell our data, corrode our personal lives, society as a whole, and democracy. Unfortunately, complaining about it won't be effective, as it's been proven to fail miserably for years. The only thing that's going to stop this is coming up with FOSS, fully distributed, not for profit alternatives that can do a good job at connecting people and serving humanity.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#137

Post by close04 »

dspillett wrote: post #134
close04 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed how no feature that brings monetary value to the users is ever accidentally added? I never accidentally received money from these companies, extra storage quota, personalized email address, premium account, etc. And certainly never something that you get to keep once they realize the mistake. The fact that they have such weak controls when it comes to protecting you but such strong controls when it c…

> I never accidentally ... extra storage quota Raises hand as an example of someone who essentially got a free server upgrade from 500G to 2T storage recently, due to people following a fixed procedure in a slightly unusual circumstance without thinking. "Positive" accidents do happen. People just don't tend to shout about them publicly as much as they do about those with negative consequences or that affect many at…

We're talking about different things. You're considering just the coding accident of an employee removing this and forgetting that. I'm talking about the intentional decision of not validating this in a better, more robust fashion, at least when it comes to issues that have a huge impact on security or privacy. This was a calculated decision. Whether it was done by not putting in place or by removing all the obstacles that could have prevented this makes no difference. After the first privacy "accident" they should have had in place all the processes required to make sure such an issue doesn't happen, then go unnoticed for so long.

If 5 years from now VW has another "rogue engineer" everybody will wonder how is it possible that it slip through the cracks again. Facebook let things like this slip through the cracks again and again.

> Of course this doesn't excuse it, just explains it.

It excuses it the second it's made too look like a random accident but somehow keeps happening again and again the same way, always to their advantage.

P.S. I'm sure no company accidentally gave such upgrades to 1.5 million users and let them get away with this. And they also didn't accidentally do this again and again. You highlighted perfectly the difference between an accident and an "accident".

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#138

Post by sornaensis »

lightgreen wrote: post #121

Almost everything grows “exponentially” when it grows (companies, population, virus infections etc). When exponent is 0.000000001 it is also “exponential” grows. And decline is also usually “exponential”. It is basic math and common sense. The author actually meant “fast”, and the word “exponential” is a marker of poor quality title.

Exponential means your input is the exponent, eg y=2^x or y=e^x.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#139

Post by kd5bjo »

close04 wrote: post #137
dspillett wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never accidentally ... extra storage quota Raises hand as an example of someone who essentially got a free server upgrade from 500G to 2T storage recently, due to people following a fixed procedure in a slightly unusual circumstance without thinking. "Positive" accidents do happen. People just don't tend to shout about them publicly as much as they do about those with negative consequences or that affect many at…

We're talking about different things. You're considering just the coding accident of an employee removing this and forgetting that. I'm talking about the intentional decision of not validating this in a better, more robust fashion, at least when it comes to issues that have a huge impact on security or privacy. This was a calculated decision. Whether it was done by not putting in place or by removing all the obstacle…

> I'm talking about the intentional decision of not validating this in a better, more robust fashion, ...

In my experience, deciding not to do something is unlikely to be intentional. Instead, the something that’s not done simply never presented itself as an idea.

Do you have any evidence that this particular lapse was premeditated, or did you come to this conclusion based solely on your prior opinion of their actions?

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#140

Post by visarga »

mrlala wrote: post #30
reaperducer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same billionaire who spends tens of millions of dollars bulldozing houses around his in order to increase his privacy,† then tells the commoners that wanting privacy isn't normal.†† † https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Zuckerberg-to-raze-4-hou... †† https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facebooks-zuckerberg-the_n_41...

Physical privacy vs virtual privacy are two very different things, so it's disingenuous to pretend they are exactly the same.

It's not a matter of being exactly the same thing or not. The double standard is glaring.
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